


Keepin' the Dream Alive

by KylaraIngress



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV First Person, Swiss Cheese Memory, mid-leap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KylaraIngress/pseuds/KylaraIngress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a leap, Sam and Al have a conversation regarding wives and memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keepin' the Dream Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for the November 2000 Slash Writers story challenge – "Name that Tune": In this challenge, the point is to try to convey the meaning of a song through your story – you *can't* put the actual lyrics in the story *as lyrics*, but you can have the characters say the lines during the conversation, or read them, or you can have the setting convey the words. Don't tell us the song at the beginning – either let us guess or put spoiler space at the bottom." This was previously published in _Angel & the Dreamer_, issue #6, and written in the early 2000s. Putting up here as part of Throwback Thursdays.

"Tonight the rain is falling." I sighed, looking out at the foggy skyline of Chicago from the balcony of my host's house. Al was standing at my side, and for a minute I could pretend he was actually here, not several thousand miles and ten years away.

"The kid's gonna try and kill himself tomorrow," Al said, punching up the latest display on the handlink. "So, looks like you get a night free, Sam."

I sighed again, knowing that meant I would probably have a night 'free' away from Al as well. Lately, it seemed all he was interested in was telling me what I was here to do and then escaping into his world. While part of me knew it was because there _was_ another world behind the imaging chamber door, a world filled with budgets and committees and (I had to grudgingly admit) beautiful women he could touch, part of me wanted nothing more than to spend the evening with him, talking to him like we used to. 

"Full of memories, of people and places," I commented, bringing my hand out to catch a few drops of rain.

"You okay, kid?" he asked, pulling out the obligatory cigar. "The rain lettin' you remember things?"

I shook my head, saying, "While the past is calling, in my fantasy I remember their faces." I noticed he had put the handlink away, somehow guessing that I didn't want him to leave just yet.

"What's up, Sam?" he asked me, knowing as usual that I was hiding something from him. I was tired, physically and emotionally, and starting to doubt I was doing any good at all. While Al would continue telling me how I helped these people, I saw so many more that I couldn't help, that wouldn't accept it, and this latest leap had presented the utmost challenge in a young man, John, bent on committing suicide. I had tried talking to the man, my host's student, tried getting him to work out some of the emotions he surely must be feeling, to no avail. Our only hope, my only hope, seemed to be in waiting until he actually tried it and talking to him then. But even then, I was unsure whether I would do any good.

"The hopes we had were much too high," I tried to explain to him, turning away so he wouldn't see the emotions in my face. "Way out of reach."

"But we have to try," Al said, being the cheerleader that he always is. "The game will never be over, because we're keepin' the dream alive." I heard the squeak of the handlink and I couldn't help the cringe I felt at him leaving me like this. But I nearly had a heart attack when he suddenly popped in front of me, theoretically 12 flights up on thin air. "I know what you're feelin', Sam," he said, giving me that look he used to give me – before I leapt, before I had remembered Donna instead of him, before I forgot about us. What would he say now if I told him my memories were not all gone? That I did remember some aspects of my life before I leapt? "You can talk to me, Sam," he said. "I know we haven't had a whole lot of time lately to just talk, but I'm always here for you, buddy."

Buddy. He used to call me love. "I hear myself recalling things you said to me the night it all started," I admitted, letting him know I remembered the argument we had that evening I jumped into the accelerator. It wasn't just over the funding for the project, although that had been the catalyst for our fight. It had been about his interests in Tina as well, and his insistence that his relationship with her was just a cover for his military lifestyle. It had been raining then, I realized, a slow drizzle of the type you only get in New Mexico, where you knew it was going to stop the minute you got adjusted to it. "And still the rain is falling," I continued, moving my hand past his form to feel the rain once again. "Makes me feel the way I felt when we parted." 

How I ached to be able to hold him. Even with as surrealistic as it was to see him standing over nothing, I still had to quell every impulse in me to try and pull him into a hug. He was looking at me, a small bit of hope in his eyes as he digested the information I just supplied him. I thought about what I had said about leaping, _'The hopes we had were much too high, way out of reach,'_ knowing it was a mantra for our relationship as well. _'But we have to try,'_ he had said to my defeat over the leap. If only he felt that way about us as well. 

"You remember?" he asked, moving to where he was 'standing' next to me on the balcony. "You remember us?" The handlink was out still, one hand poised over the button that would call up the imaging chamber door, ready to escape if the need arose.

"No need to hide," I calmed him, "no need to run. 'Cause all the answers come one by one." Bit by bit I was remembering our life, and it just made my defeat over this leap that much harder. How I wanted to come home, wanted to be able to hold him in my arms, wanted to kiss all his troubles away. "The game will never be over," I quoted back to him, questioning him, letting him know the game I was referring to was not the leaping, but the game we played with each other. I turned away again, not wanting him to see the love in my eyes. 

"Because we're keepin' the dream alive," he quoted back to me, stressing the word 'dream' so I knew he still thought a romantic relationship with me was just a dream. I heard him press a button on the link, making the dreaded door open behind him. "I've gotta get back to work, Sam," he said, the apology inherent in his voice. "Those nozzles on the committee won't understand why we're keepin' the imaging chamber online if you don't need me around."

It was a half-hearted plea for understanding, I knew, but I still persisted, saying, "I need you." I took a deep breath, turned back to him, and let the words slip out of my mouth, "I love you." 

 _'The game will never be over,'_ I heard him say yet again in my head. I hated this game. Were we keeping any kind of dream alive? He looked at me with something akin to pain in his eyes, and I wondered if I was breaking his heart yet again, like I had when I had gone on about Donna, oblivious to our prior relationship at the time.

"You'll be fine without me," he said, choosing to focus on the first half of my statement. "Hell, ain't you the one who's always telling me how much you do this job without me?"

I had hoped, too much, knowing a normal relationship was out of the question. But I had continued pestering him, continued trying. I wanted to protect him so much, helping him out of his hiding place, knowing he wanted to run, letting the hard questions about our relationship hit him one at a time. 

I sighed, turning away from him once more, and let my thoughts wander back to watching the rain. Remembering. He had stormed off after the argument, his way of dealing with his irritation with me, driving away in his prototype car. Going to find Tina, no doubt, and bang her for all she was worth as a reaction to his internal conflict about his feelings for me. And I . . . I had decided to take his comments about the accelerator chamber as fuel for my half of the argument, and with a hurried note to Ziggy about how classified everything was to be considered, I put on the fermi suit and decided to prove my theory once and for all.

"Sam?" he asked, not wanting to leave me like this. Not wanting a repeat of his actions that night at the project, no doubt.

I remembered the leap everything changed. Or, I should say, the leap after everything changed. It had been right after I reunited Donna with her father, and I readily admitted I had gone on a bit about how much I loved her. But at the time, all I could remember was the pain of her leaving me at the altar. All Al had to do was remind me how he had comforted me, how that night we had shared our first awkward kiss, me more interested in getting what my body expected the night of my wedding, him more interested in keeping his best friend sane. But he didn't remind me. I never knew why.

But I do remember the next leap. He had come to me, looking at me with a strange look in his eyes. Without telling me anything, I knew then that Donna had no longer left me at the altar. _Was she at the project_? I wondered. Did Al come out of the imaging chamber that day, torn with grief over me not remembering us, only to be confronted by my wife?

Was it any wonder, then, that he insisted I try and keep Beth from leaving him? An eye for an eye, the Bible says. And a wife for a wife? 

"Sam, I gotta go," he said, repeating his earlier threat.

 _'The hopes we had were much too high,'_ I repeated to myself. _'Way out of reach.'_ "Then go," I said, realizing things would never be the same between us. And all because of me. _'The game will never be over,'_ I remembered, not sure if I ever wanted to return home with a best friend who no longer cared for me as deeply as he once did, or as deeply as I cared for him.

He must have seen my emotions on my face, must have guessed the extent of my internal monologue, for he quietly mumbled, "We're keepin' the dream alive," slowly closing the chamber door yet again.

I turned to him, finally, and saw a glisten of tears in his eyes. I think I had seen Al cry all of once in our long friendship. I suddenly realized what he couldn't say, what he couldn't reveal, and my heart was abruptly lightened as I took in what love he could share with me.

"I do need you," I repeated, stopping my hand from its attempt at reaching out. I didn't want to be reminded that he wasn't really here, not now. "And I do love you." I had to let him know I remembered that.

"I know, Sam," he said, setting aside the cigar. "Hell, you can't keep anything hidden on that mug of yours," he tried to joke. "You've kinda given me the heebie jeebies with the looks you've been castin' my way."

All at once, I realized why he had been so awkward around me, and why he was so confused about my attentions. Our relationship had grown out of the incident of Donna leaving; with that no longer happening, the new timeline wouldn't have us. While I'm sure a part of him remembered that other past, the one where he and I had a stormy sort of relationship, always hiding our love for the sake of his uniform, the main part of his memories were focused on the new past – where we were only just friends. I recalled my reaction to him having a crush on me when I was Samantha Stormer, how I was part amused, part upset, and part confused. He must be feeling something like that toward me, and I didn't even have a female aura to blame. 

"You're my only link to home," I said, aware at how close these words came to the same ones he had said for why he wanted Beth to wait for him. "Sometimes, you're all that keeps me going."

It must have hit him, too, for I saw his face cloud in emotion; anger, fear, confusion. "Well," he said, picking the cigar back up again, "while it's good to hear that you honestly don't think I'm useless," he said, attempting a wan smile, "I need to warn you of the problems that creates. When you come home," he said, stressing the 'when', "what you remember may not be here." A silent threat, reminder, of how he had come home thinking Beth would be waiting for him, only to have her gone through declaring him dead and marrying someone else.

"That's okay," I said. "I'll take whatever I can get." The game will never be over . . . . 

"Have faith, Sam," Al said, reopening the chamber door. "Keep that dream alive." And as he exited, I realized he was referring to the dream of our relationship. I finally realized what I could do with John, what I could say to make him realize that suicide was not the answer. All I had to do was explain why I kept going myself, explain how the love I felt might some day win out over all. And I silently slid into the room, closing the glass door behind me much in the same fashion that the imaging chamber door had closed. And I thought over how his eyes had shown with love, a love he couldn't express for various reasons, but would show me in his own way through his continued existence at my side.

And I fell asleep, refreshed by the rain falling outside my window.

**Author's Note:**

> The song used was "Keeping the Dream Alive", performed by Freiheit. From the _Say Anything . . ._ soundtrack. You can listen to it [here](http://youtu.be/Xr2vXDLK7wk), and read the lyrics to it [here](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/f/freiheitmnchener7891/keepingthedreamalive279031.html).


End file.
